Chinese Bridge: Enhancing proficiency in the Oriental language

The Confucius Institute, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, held the 2017 edition of Chinese Bridge competition last week. Chinese Bridge is an international Chinese proficiency language competition sponsored by the institute, which has its headquarters in Hanban. It is renown for its culture and educational exchange programmes worldwide.

The competition, which is held annually, aims at arousing the enthusiasm of students in various countries learning Chinese and strengthening the world’s understanding of Chinese language and culture. This year’s edition of the Chinese Bridge had 21 participating schools in total, with four primary schools, 14 secondary schools and three universities. They were Confucius Institute, University of Lagos, Confucius Institute, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Amanbra State, and Afe Babalola University, Ekiti State.

According to the Director, Confucius Institute, University of Lagos, Prof. Wang Yongting, “We have been teaching Chinese in different primary, secondary and universities; all the students just want to compete positively with each other. With this platform, the students can look at each other and learn from each other.

“Just as its name Chinese Bridge connotes, we hope that students can come over through the ‘Bridge’ and get closer and closer to the Chinese culture. This why we encourage the students to come together and have the competition and by doing this, we think that we can influence more and more people, if they are interested. Our hope is that people who want to learn the Chinese culture can come here to the Confucius Institute for help.

“There is something interesting for the university students. The winner can go to China for the final competition and also receive a one-month free training. The second runner up will be given the opportunity to travel and view the whole competition. Besides this, the Confucius Institute, especially the headquarters in China, offers a lot of scholarships for our Nigerian university students.”

The competition featured a variety of art performances, which included dance, poetry and song renditions, group quiz and speeches. The overall winners received medals and gifts. Winners of this year’s edition of the Chinese Bridge competition were Grace Primary School, Grace High School and Confucius Institute, University of Lagos.